Iām honestly not sure if I knew beforehand about the penguin.Ā This is one of those āwackyā anime tropes where itās like āUh-oh, we have a kooky thing in our show!Ā Wokka wokka!ā and Iām pretty sure itās in so many different titles that I probably heard about the penguin and got it mixed up with some other showās wacky animal.Ā Anyway, let the record show that there is a penguin in this anime.
So last time Shinji Ikari got voluntipulated to pilot Eva Unit 01 in battle against an āangelā, a powerful monster that occasionally shows up in this world.Ā All we really know so far is that the angels are hostile and only the Eva machines can stop them, if they have a compatible pilot to operate them.Ā I guess the NERV Agency built the Eva machines, and recruited Rei Ayanami to pilot one of them, but sheās been hospitalized, so the NERV director, Gendo Ikari, has brought in his son, Shinji, to pilot another Eva unit in her place.
And he reluctantly agrees, despite having no training or prior experience.Ā Hell, itās not even clear he had any idea what he was getting into today.Ā Anyway, he seems to have a gift for controlling his Eva, but the angel still overpowers him and starts kicking his ass.Ā One of its powers is some sort of energy piledriver thing it uses to batter the head of Eva-01. Shinji can feel the damage, even though his own body isnāt physically harmed.
In the NERV command center, everyoneās freaking out because this clearly isnāt working, but thereās nothing they can do about it.Ā Well, everyone except Shinjiās dad, Gendo.Ā He doesnāt seem to care much one way or the other.
Then we flash forward to after the battle, when Shinji wakes up in bed.Ā The middle of the episode just moves on, and for a while itās unclear what the hell happened.Ā
A bunch of big shots have a meeting in a darkened room, talking in circles about how expensive it is to fight the angels and all the projects they want Gendo Ikari to work on.Ā I feel like Iāve seen this a hundred times.Ā Pop Team Epic spoofed a scene like this, and this whole show reminds me of the not-funny parts of the Excel Saga manga.Ā All these vague references to things the audience couldnāt possibly know about, and flashbacks to lines delivered earlier in the same episode.Ā I donāt know if Evangelion was the inspiration for a lot of this stuff, or if it was just using tropes that were already familiar in 1995.Ā Certainly the giant robots vs. giant monster thing is nothing new.Ā
Anyway, nothing really gets settled in this scene.Ā The authorities want Dr. Ikari to handle this crisis, and from what I can tell he already is. Heās a callous prick about it, but none of these guys seem to care about his attitude. They briefly ask why itās so hard to find compatible pilots for these Eva Units, but we never get a clear answer. And Gendo has no reaction to their posturing, so this scene really doesnāt advance his character at all, unless the point is to show that heās just as indifferent towards his superiors as he is to his subordinates.
At some point Shinji is released from the hospital, and Misato sets him up to live in this city.Ā He wasnāt injured from the battle, but he was shaken up pretty badly.Ā On their way, they briefly run into Gendo, who just stares at Shinji, who looks away in frustration until the elevator door closes.Ā Soon enough, Misato learns that Shinji wonāt be living with Gendo while heās here.Ā That doesnāt seem to bother either of the Ikaris.Ā
So Misato arranges to have Shinji live with her, since she doesnāt like the idea of him being in a place by himself.Ā She tells Ritsuko about this, and jokes that she isnāt planning to seduce the kid, and Ritsuko is upset at the very thought of it.Ā Ā
Misato was only kidding, but yeah, thatās kind of a messed up thing to kid about.Ā Itās not even a case of the joke aging poorly, because Ritsuko takes offense in the very next line of dialogue.
On the way to her place, Misato finally explains to Shinji what this place is: Tokyo-3, a fortified city designed to repel Angel attacks.Ā I think I can make an educated guess about what happened to Tokyo and Tokyo-2. What I donāt understand is what good the city does.Ā It didnāt protect anything, and it was up to Shinji to defend it.Ā Maybe itās just easier to clean up and repair than a regular city.
Anyway, they get to the apartment and thereās empty beer cans and trash everywhere.Ā Shinji is uncomfortable being here, heās uncomfortable eating instant meals with Misato, and when he doesnāt immediately relax like she wants, she brow-beats him over it.Ā
I guess thatās the point of all this.Ā Misatoās the only person in this show so far who even tries to treat Shinji like a person, and sheās frustrated that he isnāt more like the kind of person sheād like him to be.Ā
I mean, the additional frustration of living with an adult woman must be stressful as well, and the penguin probably doesnāt help matters.Ā
Okay, so this is kind of a thing.Ā At night, Shinji lies in his bedroom listening to his mixtape or whatever, and it switches from track 25 to 26.Ā I was reading a Twitter thread that mentioned this, and how he only listens to those two tracks over and over, so I think that becomes important later.Ā Anyway.
At last, we finally flash back to the battle, and learn how Shinji survived.Ā Somehow, his Eva went berserk and began fighting back all on its own.Ā Or maybe Shinji was controlling it unconsciously or whatever.Ā The Angel is quickly overwhelmed, and it tries to self-destruct, but the Eva survives unharmed.Ā
The NERV crew mention something about the Evaās ātrue formā, which I guess explains whatever this thing is that we see beneath itās helmet.Ā Shinji gets a look at it through his viewscreen and they stare at each other for a while before he blacks out from terror.
Before turning in for the night Misato stops by to tell him what she feels she should have told him earlier: that he did a good thing by saving Tokyo-3 from the Angel.Ā
I donāt know, it didnāt quite hit me until now, but yeah, itās kind of fucked up that no one bothers to thank him until well after the crisis has passed.Ā I mean, if Tokyo-3, the NERV Agency, and all the rest are so crucial to the future of humanity, then youād think thereād be more gratitude towards Shinji.Ā I think part of the disconnect here is that the Angel problem is a lot bigger than this one attack, and the characters are too busy worrying about the big picture to appreciate a single act of heroism, no matter how important it might be.Ā
Anyway, thatās it for now.Ā Join us next time when... actually I have no idea.Ā I watch the next episode preview, but I couldnāt make much sense of it. Iāll find out soon enough.
